arc_select() throwing Error in x[[1]] : subscript out of bounds

[t-stratmann]

Hi Josiah,

Thank-you first of all for your amazing package. It is opening new automation possibilities for us and allowing for better data management. I am just having some issues with the arc_select() function. I have skimmed stack overflow and issue reports for your packages but have not gotten wiser.

For me the arc_select() function only works if I run it 2-3 times. The first time it fails and gives me Error in x[[1]] : subscript out of bounds. Then on the 2nd or 3rd attempt it works. This wouldn't be a huge issue but I need this to work in an Rmarkdown file and so this of course stops the document from knitting. Here is the output in my console with sessionInfo() included:

library(arcgis)
Attaching core arcgis packages:
→ arcgisutils v0.4.0
→ arcgislayers v0.5.2
→ arcgisgeocode v0.4.0
→ arcgisplaces v0.1.2
→ arcpbf v0.2.0

sessionInfo()
R version 4.5.1 (2025-06-13 ucrt)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64
Running under: Windows 11 x64 (build 26200)

Matrix products: default
LAPACK version 3.12.1

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.utf8 LC_CTYPE=English_United States.utf8 LC_MONETARY=English_United States.utf8
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=English_United States.utf8

time zone: Europe/Berlin
tzcode source: internal

attached base packages:
[1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base

other attached packages:
[1] arcpbf_0.2.0 arcgisplaces_0.1.2 arcgisgeocode_0.4.0 arcgislayers_0.5.2 arcgisutils_0.4.0 arcgis_0.2.0

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] digest_0.6.37 R6_2.6.1 fastmap_1.2.0 xfun_0.53 knitr_1.50 htmltools_0.5.8.1 rmarkdown_2.30
[8] lifecycle_1.0.4 cli_3.6.5 S7_0.2.0 compiler_4.5.1 rstudioapi_0.17.1 tools_4.5.1 evaluate_1.0.5
[15] yaml_2.3.10 rlang_1.1.6

key <- auth_key()
set_arc_token(key)

fences.url <- "https://services5.arcgis.com/Z0KEnSw0ZS6aB5oA/arcgis/rest/services/IH_RE_Fences_lines_active/FeatureServer/0"
fences.layer <- arc_open(fences.url)
fences.shp <- arc_select(fences.layer)
Error in x[[1]] : subscript out of bounds

fences.shp <- arc_select(fences.layer)
plot(fences.shp["NAME"], pch = 16, cex = 0.5)

RE.landscapes.url <- "https://services5.arcgis.com/Z0KEnSw0ZS6aB5oA/arcgis/rest/services/Areas_Current_and_Active_RA_PA_and_PS/FeatureServer/0"
RE.landscapes.layer <- arc_open(RE.landscapes.url)
RE.landscapes.all <- arc_select(RE.landscapes.layer)
Error in x[[1]] : subscript out of bounds

RE.landscapes.all <- arc_select(RE.landscapes.layer)

You can see with both files, it loaded on the second time. Any insight you can offer would be much appreciated!

Theresa

[JosiahParry]

@t-stratmann i cannot reproduce this issue unfortunately. It may be related to getting bad requests along the way? Im not sure.

Maybe you can try reducing the page size to get fewer rows per request:

library(arcgis)
#> Attaching core arcgis packages:
#> → arcgisutils v0.4.0.9000
#> → arcgislayers v0.5.2
#> → arcgisgeocode v0.4.0
#> → arcgisplaces v0.1.2
#> → arcpbf v0.2.0

flayer <- arc_open("https://services5.arcgis.com/Z0KEnSw0ZS6aB5oA/arcgis/rest/services/Areas_Current_and_Active_RA_PA_and_PS/FeatureServer/0")

get_layer_estimates(flayer)
#> $count
#> [1] 294
#> 
#> $extent
#>    xmin    ymin    xmax    ymax 
#> 2640821 1643443 7440489 5305624

res <- arc_select(flayer, page_size = 5)
res
#> Simple feature collection with 225 features and 11 fields (with 1 geometry empty)
#> Geometry type: POLYGON
#> Dimension:     XY
#> Bounding box:  xmin: 2640821 ymin: 1643443 xmax: 7440489 ymax: 5305624
#> Projected CRS: ETRS89-extended / LAEA Europe
#> First 10 features:
#>    OBJECTID   ID                   COUNTRY         LANDSCAPE
#> 1         9 CA04                     Italy Central Apennines
#> 2        10 CA05                     Italy Central Apennines
#> 3        11 CA06                     Italy Central Apennines
#> 4        12 CA07                     Italy Central Apennines
#> 5        13 CA08                     Italy Central Apennines
#> 6        18 DD25 Moldova; Romania; Ukraine      Danube Delta
#> 7        19 DD20                   Ukraine      Danube Delta
#> 8        20 DD19                   Romania      Danube Delta
#> 9        24 DD10                   Ukraine      Danube Delta
#> 10       25 DD07                   Ukraine      Danube Delta
#>                   TYPE                              NAME AREAHA STATUS
#> 1        Priority area Corridor 5-ALMNP-Ernici Simbruini  56698 Active
#> 2        Priority area   Corridor 1-ALMNP-Sirente Velino   7547 Active
#> 3        Priority area          Corridor 3-ALMNP-Majella   8809 Active
#> 4        Priority area  Corridor 2-ALMNP-Genzana-Majella  19099 Active
#> 5        Priority area      Corridor 4-ALMNP-MAB-Majella  20338 Active
#> 6  Rewilding landscape                      Danube Delta 789958 Active
#> 7        Priority area                   Kartal-Kugurlui  26271 Active
#> 8        Priority area                   Sfantu Gheorghe  63911 Active
#> 9           Pilot site                       Kartal Lake   2328 Active
#> 10          Pilot site                     Tataru Island    737 Active
#>                  START END_                             GlobalID
#> 1  2021-02-20 16:00:00 <NA> a9c38322-e40f-454d-ae2b-3594b3cd0287
#> 2  2021-02-20 16:00:00 <NA> dd85f067-f05c-407c-adfd-e807f02dac48
#> 3  2021-02-20 16:00:00 <NA> 3974b30e-5644-4d94-98b4-90da84c62c84
#> 4  2021-02-20 16:00:00 <NA> 6277a753-8982-4e33-a661-5fdd8156376a
#> 5  2021-02-20 16:00:00 <NA> 887a367f-914e-4c6f-b237-ba51c5815524
#> 6  2018-12-31 16:00:00 <NA> 708f6993-0881-49bb-8db4-2a6dfdd3eea2
#> 7                 <NA> <NA> 227b6624-0d61-421a-9b1c-ecfad29d7421
#> 8  2018-12-31 16:00:00 <NA> cee57972-16ec-45d1-a512-b8bf7a998dd8
#> 9  2019-12-31 16:00:00 <NA> c9a7fd0c-f61b-42b4-8ce2-a55989cf1fad
#> 10 2018-12-31 16:00:00 <NA> dedfd787-2b81-47f8-86cb-04e10babef94
#>                          geometry
#> 1  POLYGON ((4599832 2105627, ...
#> 2  POLYGON ((4626399 2124120, ...
#> 3  POLYGON ((4652889 2089918, ...
#> 4  POLYGON ((4642477 2109318, ...
#> 5  POLYGON ((4652773 2077390, ...
#> 6  POLYGON ((5717644 2702577, ...
#> 7  POLYGON ((5758288 2650619, ...
#> 8  POLYGON ((5850498 2643501, ...
#> 9  POLYGON ((5758196 2650828, ...
#> 10 POLYGON ((5796614 2662110, ...

^{Created on 2025-10-31 with reprex v2.1.1}

[JosiahParry]

you may also want to install a new version of arcpbf via install.packages("arcpbf")

[JosiahParry]

Another thought is—are you running this over and over again? You may actually be getting rate limitted. In any event, thought, a better error message is necessary :)

[t-stratmann]

Hi Joshia, thanks for looking into this! Sadly I cannot provide a reproducible error because I need to get files in our organizational ArcGIS Online account. Therefore it is also difficult to know if the error is to do the R package or something on the ESRI side of things. Also, it is fairly random it the script works or not. Sometimes it works on a file and the next time it does not. Adding the page_size = 5 sometimes helps and I installed "arcpbf" again. But I still get the Error in x[[i]] : subscript out of bounds if not on the first file I try to read in then the second. I just want to read in 4 different shapefiles into my R script one time. Who rate limits one? ESRI? We have an NGO account... maybe that has something to do with it? But a few days ago I had none of these issues.

[JosiahParry]

I'm sorry, without more details and a reproducible example. I cannot be of assistance. Perhaps you are trying to read too much data into memory, have unstable internet access, or any other number of possible problems :(

I would recommend filtering your data to only the columns and rows that you will need before hand using the "where" and "fields" arguments. See https://developers.arcgis.com/r-bridge/layers/reading-feature-services/#reading-from-a-feature-layer for more.